Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

2015-03-21 Thread Sean DALY
Yes, of course, which is why my idea was to get assistance. To be clear,
I'm in favor of whatever solution could ease installation. Choosing a
keyboard layout from scratch can be quite tricky for the uninitiated, the
Virtualbox list is long with many variants (
https://straymarcs.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/8.-select-keyboard.png)
although an autodetect button is available. If the teacher or journalist
has to configure language and keyboard a second time when booting the VM as
you mention, that qualifies as jumping through hoops. My goal was to work
with Oracle on a bundled installer+VM executable (which requires a matrix
by host OS in any case) to make the install as seamless as possible. I cite
Firefox because they propose a pancake button installer by probing the
website client (or analyzing the user agent, or whatever they do), with the
full matrix only 1 click away.

Sean


On Sat, Mar 21, 2015 at 2:06 AM, Gonzalo Odiard godi...@sugarlabs.org
wrote:

 We can ask language and keyboard in the first boot as we do with age and
 gender.
 I think create and maintain a complete matrix of VMs will be more
 difficult.

 Gonzalo

 On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 7:39 PM, Sean DALY sdaly...@gmail.com wrote:

 We need to do everything possible to reduce Sugar's installation and
 unfamiliarity barriers. Not everyone speaks English and can find and
 configure the Sugar control panel on their first encounter with Sugar. A
 keyboard mismatched with what appears on the screen merely gives the
 impression it doesn't work right. VM hosts could have a number of different
 keyboards - for example I have a Macbook with French locale Azerty layout
  (flipped numbers row, common accents) and a Dell education netbook with
 Belgium locale keyboard. Look at the Firefox Systems  Languages download
 matrix (https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/), for a Sugar VM with
 bundled installer an interested teacher or journalist would just need to
 choose the appropriate download.

 I feel the huge sizes of these images would be more of a problem, but not
 much we can do there.

 Sean


 On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 9:35 PM, Gonzalo Odiard godi...@sugarlabs.org
 wrote:

  My idea at the time was to approach Oracle for corporate sponsorship
  of Virtualbox images, in particular hosting a workflow to automate
  prebuilt images by host language/keyboard, however some community
  members were aghast at the idea.

 Is still needed have a vm by host language/keyboard?
 Or we can ask to the user using the same code from the Sugar control
 panel?

 Gonzalo



 On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 5:18 PM, James Cameron qu...@laptop.org wrote:

 On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 06:26:34PM +0100, Sean DALY wrote:
  My idea at the time was to approach Oracle for corporate sponsorship
  of Virtualbox images, in particular hosting a workflow to automate
  prebuilt images by host language/keyboard, however some community
  members were aghast at the idea.

 Maybe now is a better time.  Maybe those aghast at the idea haven't
 noticed yet.  ;-)

 --
 James Cameron
 http://quozl.linux.org.au/




 --
 Gonzalo Odiard

 SugarLabs - Software for children learning





 --
 Gonzalo Odiard

 SugarLabs - Software for children learning

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Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

2015-03-21 Thread Iain Brown Douglas
Hi Sean,

Is it a thing that you would contemplate now, to approach Oracle (for
corporate sponsorship, perhaps) but  in particular about what support
they would offer Sugarlabs towards our targets?

Would there be a view against this idea?

Regards,

Iain

On Sat, 2015-03-21 at 11:37 +0100, Sean DALY wrote:
 Yes, of course, which is why my idea was to get assistance. To be
 clear, I'm in favor of whatever solution could ease installation.
 Choosing a keyboard layout from scratch can be quite tricky for the
 uninitiated, the Virtualbox list is long with many variants
 (https://straymarcs.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/8.-select-keyboard.png) 
 although an autodetect button is available. If the teacher or journalist has 
 to configure language and keyboard a second time when booting the VM as you 
 mention, that qualifies as jumping through hoops. My goal was to work with 
 Oracle on a bundled installer+VM executable (which requires a matrix by host 
 OS in any case) to make the install as seamless as possible. I cite Firefox 
 because they propose a pancake button installer by probing the website client 
 (or analyzing the user agent, or whatever they do), with the full matrix only 
 1 click away.
 
 
 Sean
 
 
 
 On Sat, Mar 21, 2015 at 2:06 AM, Gonzalo Odiard
 godi...@sugarlabs.org wrote:
 We can ask language and keyboard in the first boot as we do
 with age and gender.
 I think create and maintain a complete matrix of VMs will be
 more difficult.
 
 
 Gonzalo 
 
 On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 7:39 PM, Sean DALY
 sdaly...@gmail.com wrote:
 We need to do everything possible to reduce Sugar's
 installation and unfamiliarity barriers. Not everyone
 speaks English and can find and configure the Sugar
 control panel on their first encounter with Sugar. A
 keyboard mismatched with what appears on the screen
 merely gives the impression it doesn't work right. VM
 hosts could have a number of different keyboards - for
 example I have a Macbook with French locale Azerty
 layout
 
  (flipped numbers row, common accents) and a Dell
 education netbook with Belgium locale keyboard. Look
 at the Firefox Systems  Languages download matrix
 (https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/), for a
 Sugar VM with bundled installer an interested teacher
 or journalist would just need to choose the
 appropriate download.
 
 
 I feel the huge sizes of these images would be more of
 a problem, but not much we can do there.
 
 
 Sean
 
 
 
 On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 9:35 PM, Gonzalo Odiard
 godi...@sugarlabs.org wrote:
  My idea at the time was to approach Oracle
 for corporate sponsorship
  of Virtualbox images, in particular hosting
 a workflow to automate
  prebuilt images by host language/keyboard,
 however some community
  members were aghast at the idea.
 
 
 Is still needed have a vm by host
 language/keyboard?
 Or we can ask to the user using the same code
 from the Sugar control panel?
 
 
 Gonzalo
 
 
 
 
 
 On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 5:18 PM, James Cameron
 qu...@laptop.org wrote:
 On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 06:26:34PM
 +0100, Sean DALY wrote:
  My idea at the time was to approach
 Oracle for corporate sponsorship
  of Virtualbox images, in particular
 hosting a workflow to automate
  prebuilt images by host
 language/keyboard, however some
 community
  members were aghast at the idea.
 
 Maybe now is a better time.  Maybe
 those aghast at the idea haven't
 noticed yet.  ;-)
 
 

Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

2015-03-21 Thread Sean DALY
I'm certainly willing to try again. However the community (starting with
the Oversight Board) needs to support the initiative - technical work is
involved on our side even with a partner, including work I probably don't
even know about. And SL's immediate focus is on mentoring GSoC projects.

I will ask for an agenda item in the next Oversight Borard meeting or the
one after.

Sean.


On Sat, Mar 21, 2015 at 2:49 PM, Iain Brown Douglas 
i...@browndouglas.plus.com wrote:

 Hi Sean,

 Is it a thing that you would contemplate now, to approach Oracle (for
 corporate sponsorship, perhaps) but  in particular about what support
 they would offer Sugarlabs towards our targets?

 Would there be a view against this idea?

 Regards,

 Iain

 On Sat, 2015-03-21 at 11:37 +0100, Sean DALY wrote:
  Yes, of course, which is why my idea was to get assistance. To be
  clear, I'm in favor of whatever solution could ease installation.
  Choosing a keyboard layout from scratch can be quite tricky for the
  uninitiated, the Virtualbox list is long with many variants
  (
 https://straymarcs.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/8.-select-keyboard.png)
 although an autodetect button is available. If the teacher or journalist
 has to configure language and keyboard a second time when booting the VM as
 you mention, that qualifies as jumping through hoops. My goal was to work
 with Oracle on a bundled installer+VM executable (which requires a matrix
 by host OS in any case) to make the install as seamless as possible. I cite
 Firefox because they propose a pancake button installer by probing the
 website client (or analyzing the user agent, or whatever they do), with the
 full matrix only 1 click away.
 
 
  Sean
 
 
 
  On Sat, Mar 21, 2015 at 2:06 AM, Gonzalo Odiard
  godi...@sugarlabs.org wrote:
  We can ask language and keyboard in the first boot as we do
  with age and gender.
  I think create and maintain a complete matrix of VMs will be
  more difficult.
 
 
  Gonzalo
 
  On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 7:39 PM, Sean DALY
  sdaly...@gmail.com wrote:
  We need to do everything possible to reduce Sugar's
  installation and unfamiliarity barriers. Not everyone
  speaks English and can find and configure the Sugar
  control panel on their first encounter with Sugar. A
  keyboard mismatched with what appears on the screen
  merely gives the impression it doesn't work right. VM
  hosts could have a number of different keyboards - for
  example I have a Macbook with French locale Azerty
  layout
 
   (flipped numbers row, common accents) and a Dell
  education netbook with Belgium locale keyboard. Look
  at the Firefox Systems  Languages download matrix
  (https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/), for a
  Sugar VM with bundled installer an interested teacher
  or journalist would just need to choose the
  appropriate download.
 
 
  I feel the huge sizes of these images would be more of
  a problem, but not much we can do there.
 
 
  Sean
 
 
 
  On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 9:35 PM, Gonzalo Odiard
  godi...@sugarlabs.org wrote:
   My idea at the time was to approach Oracle
  for corporate sponsorship
   of Virtualbox images, in particular hosting
  a workflow to automate
   prebuilt images by host language/keyboard,
  however some community
   members were aghast at the idea.
 
 
  Is still needed have a vm by host
  language/keyboard?
  Or we can ask to the user using the same code
  from the Sugar control panel?
 
 
  Gonzalo
 
 
 
 
 
  On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 5:18 PM, James Cameron
  qu...@laptop.org wrote:
  On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 06:26:34PM
  +0100, Sean DALY wrote:
   My idea at the time was to approach
  Oracle for corporate sponsorship
   of Virtualbox images, in particular
  hosting a workflow to automate
   prebuilt images by host
  language/keyboard, however some
  community
   members were aghast at the idea.
 
  Maybe now is a better time.  Maybe
  

Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects - SOAS

2015-03-20 Thread Iain Brown Douglas
On Fri, 2015-03-20 at 12:06 +0800, Tony Anderson wrote:
 Hi, 
 
 Is this proposal to make SOAS a live stick capable of installing Sugar
 on conventional systems (Trisquel, ...)?
 
 We have a live version of this problem on the server side.
 
 Jerry Vonau wrote a script mkusbinstall based on live-cd. OLE Nepal
 switched to unetbootin for NEXS 6_31 (OS-7 on CentOS 6.4).
 I have been trying to make this work cleanly with BERNIE - to no
 avail.
 
 One problem is that the user needs to be root. This is not possible
 for a script unless it is launched by a live user. Unetbootin is 
 a gui implementation.
 
 What I am looking for is a way to make a bootable usb stick that is
 ready to install XS without user having to supply any configuration 
 information (like path names to image or /dev for usb stick) - sort of
 an all-in-one unetbootin.

Does lili [1] fail to do this? Where does it fail?

[1] http://www.linuxliveusb.com/

(Of course this is just the organ grinder's monkey replying.)

I had rather wanted to install XS to my cubieboard. I think it would be
doable (but probably beyond my available learning time).

This would give the potential to put XS on a cheaply available set top
box.

Regards,

Iain
 
 The steps require formatting the usb device (as would be true for
 SOAS), copying the image to the disk,  and running live_cd to create
 the environment on the 
 usb stick. 
 
 In the SOAS case, the usb stick presumably runs live and has the
 option to install for some target platforms.
 
 Tony
 
 On 03/20/2015 06:26 AM, sugar-devel-requ...@lists.sugarlabs.org wrote:
 
  Message: 6
  Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2015 22:25:55 +
  From: Iain Brown Douglas i...@browndouglas.plus.com
  To: James Cameron qu...@laptop.org
  Cc: sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org
  Subject: Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects
  Message-ID: 1426803955.2592.56.camel@vey-waldorf
  Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
  
  Hi James,
  
  Thank you for taking the time to make a thoughtful contribution.
  Perhaps you will forgive me if I brainstorm this a bit.
  
  On Fri, 2015-03-20 at 08:48 +1100, James Cameron wrote:
I've often thought of making such an application, because of the
difficulties that some people report with downloading files and
putting them on USB drive.

The problem with an application is one may end up having to explain
how to download the application; transferring the issue from the
original problem to an application that was supposed to fix the
problem.

In the meanwhile, I have been working the overall problem as a
training and experience issue, and maintaining a structured
document:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Download
  Thanks for that - I believe that systematic approach would be great
  backup for those experiencing difficulties downloading.
  
  (Using curl is a sound idea from the point of view that one set of
  instructions can cover a host of different OS)

Some further ideas for what your application might do:

1.  the initial download,

2.  resuming an interrupted download,

3.  verification of download using md5sum or other hashes,

4.  media verification, reading back the files or image to check that
writing was successful and the media still works.

  I think I am right that 4 is covered already by livecd-iso-to-disk, so
  (in my model) the user only has to write a bootable CD.
  
  If one knew that a SoaS CD would always make a Sugar stick, the
  prospect of selling the CD, (by third parties ?) becomes more doable.
  
I've no evidence of proportion of people who have problems with
downloading files and putting them on media; perhaps it is a
non-problem.

A more correct approach would be to do research and survey of people
before and after such an application is made available.  A GSoC
project could be padded out with this research, and easily fill three
months.

A systems engineering view would change the product so that the files
don't have to be written to media in any particular way.  That's what
we did with the original XO laptops, but SoaS bootable images are
different because of the typical PC firmware being so exacting.

  I think this would be achieved if `liveinst` could be persuaded to write
  *only* to an automatically confirmed target USB, with the host hard
  drive locked out during install and during use of the stick, and grub
  instructed to find only the USB SoaS system.
  
  
  With reasonably priced availability of 8 GB sticks, this would seem a
  preferable option to me.
  
  Regards,
  
  Iain
 
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Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

2015-03-20 Thread Iain Brown Douglas
On Fri, 2015-03-20 at 11:49 +1100, James Cameron wrote:
 On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 10:25:55PM +, Iain Brown Douglas wrote:
  Thank you for taking the time to make a thoughtful contribution.
  Perhaps you will forgive me if I brainstorm this a bit.
 
 Yep, no worries.  Interesting, but you went off into areas I didn't
 have any comment on.
 
 I do have a comment on the accessibility of Sugar for new users ..
 
 Because of this complexity you are trying to solve, bootable USB
 drives are more trouble than they are worth.  Bootable media is more
 of a purists approach for reasons of Sugar performance, and ease of
 production by developers.
 
 A different approach would be to provide a virtual machine _and_
 virtualisation software _and_ all the necessary configuration files so
 that the user is not exposed to the virtualisation.

I agree this would be ideal for a committed potential user, and I would
love to see it.

However, (and I believe I am more of an old git than a purist) the CD =
USB stick has some human merits.

Many people can afford the time to have-a-go at downloading a CD.

You can give it to people, to use or demo.

If you like it, zap-it-to-a-stick, has attractions, *if* a 3 minute
video might cover it.

Giving a child a physical stick is nice. Constructionist.

Regards

Iain
 
 Then it would be one big download in .exe format for Windows, and .dmg
 format for Mac OS X.  The user would click on it and it would show
 them Sugar after a short delay.
 
 I know Thomas Gilliard has worked on some of the components of this,
 in particular manually prepared virtual machine images, but it would
 need to be a complete packaged solution, not a series of complex
 fragments as it is now.
 


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Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

2015-03-20 Thread Gonzalo Odiard
We can ask language and keyboard in the first boot as we do with age and
gender.
I think create and maintain a complete matrix of VMs will be more difficult.

Gonzalo

On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 7:39 PM, Sean DALY sdaly...@gmail.com wrote:

 We need to do everything possible to reduce Sugar's installation and
 unfamiliarity barriers. Not everyone speaks English and can find and
 configure the Sugar control panel on their first encounter with Sugar. A
 keyboard mismatched with what appears on the screen merely gives the
 impression it doesn't work right. VM hosts could have a number of different
 keyboards - for example I have a Macbook with French locale Azerty layout
  (flipped numbers row, common accents) and a Dell education netbook with
 Belgium locale keyboard. Look at the Firefox Systems  Languages download
 matrix (https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/), for a Sugar VM with
 bundled installer an interested teacher or journalist would just need to
 choose the appropriate download.

 I feel the huge sizes of these images would be more of a problem, but not
 much we can do there.

 Sean


 On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 9:35 PM, Gonzalo Odiard godi...@sugarlabs.org
 wrote:

  My idea at the time was to approach Oracle for corporate sponsorship
  of Virtualbox images, in particular hosting a workflow to automate
  prebuilt images by host language/keyboard, however some community
  members were aghast at the idea.

 Is still needed have a vm by host language/keyboard?
 Or we can ask to the user using the same code from the Sugar control
 panel?

 Gonzalo



 On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 5:18 PM, James Cameron qu...@laptop.org wrote:

 On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 06:26:34PM +0100, Sean DALY wrote:
  My idea at the time was to approach Oracle for corporate sponsorship
  of Virtualbox images, in particular hosting a workflow to automate
  prebuilt images by host language/keyboard, however some community
  members were aghast at the idea.

 Maybe now is a better time.  Maybe those aghast at the idea haven't
 noticed yet.  ;-)

 --
 James Cameron
 http://quozl.linux.org.au/




 --
 Gonzalo Odiard

 SugarLabs - Software for children learning





-- 
Gonzalo Odiard

SugarLabs - Software for children learning
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Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

2015-03-20 Thread Gonzalo Odiard
I didn't have idea that there are so many virtualization options:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_platform_virtualization_software

If we could have a almost automatic way to create a vm,
and share to users in windows or mac, could solve a lot of problems,
and help us reach a bigger user base.

Gonzalo



On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 10:17 AM, Sebastian Silva sebast...@fuentelibre.org
 wrote:

  El 20/03/15 a las 06:58, Gonzalo Odiard escibió:

   | A different approach would be to provide a virtual machine _and_
  virtualisation software _and_ all the necessary configuration files so
  that the user is not exposed to the virtualisation.


  Yes. This would be great.

This would also be a nice GSOC project.




-- 
Gonzalo Odiard

SugarLabs - Software for children learning
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Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

2015-03-20 Thread Sebastian Silva
I was under the impression that the only viable option for that purpose
was Virtualbox, but it's license is pretty dubious (GPLv2 + some useful
parts proprietary). Oracle has a history of bad behaviour with regard to
licenses, so I would not put all of our eggs in this basket.

Still, with 3 months time, a student should be able to pull off making
it as friendly as possible, but it would have to be repeatable, like you
say, almost automatic.

It would be even better if it was fully automatic that way we could
have regular builds.

Regards,
Sebastian

El 20/03/15 a las 08:38, Gonzalo Odiard escibió:
 I didn't have idea that there are so many virtualization options:

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_platform_virtualization_software

 If we could have a almost automatic way to create a vm,
 and share to users in windows or mac, could solve a lot of problems,
 and help us reach a bigger user base.

 Gonzalo



 On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 10:17 AM, Sebastian Silva
 sebast...@fuentelibre.org mailto:sebast...@fuentelibre.org wrote:

 El 20/03/15 a las 06:58, Gonzalo Odiard escibió:

 | A different approach would be to provide a virtual machine
 _and_
  virtualisation software _and_ all the necessary
 configuration files so
  that the user is not exposed to the virtualisation.


 Yes. This would be great.

 This would also be a nice GSOC project.




 -- 
 Gonzalo Odiard

 SugarLabs - Software for children learning 

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Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

2015-03-20 Thread Gonzalo Odiard

 | A different approach would be to provide a virtual machine _and_
  virtualisation software _and_ all the necessary configuration files so
  that the user is not exposed to the virtualisation.


Yes. This would be great.

Gonzalo
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Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

2015-03-20 Thread Sebastian Silva
El 20/03/15 a las 06:58, Gonzalo Odiard escibió:

 | A different approach would be to provide a virtual machine _and_
  virtualisation software _and_ all the necessary configuration
 files so
  that the user is not exposed to the virtualisation.


 Yes. This would be great.

This would also be a nice GSOC project.
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Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

2015-03-20 Thread Sean DALY
No the license was fine last time i checked - look at the section
concerning nonprofit/educational use. Our plan had been to bundle Sugar
prebuilt images with the Virtualbox installer.

The real issue is the extensions which are separate from the installer for
licensing reasons and must be loaded separately. The extensions may be
vital for connectivity.

My idea at the time was to approach Oracle for corporate sponsorship of
Virtualbox images, in particular hosting a workflow to automate prebuilt
images by host language/keyboard, however some community members were
aghast at the idea.

I myself have used Sugar in VirtualBox at presentations and conferences,
hassle free screen/sound/internet connectivity and full screen (Macbook),
while I hold/pass around an XO.

Sean


On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 2:43 PM, Sebastian Silva sebast...@fuentelibre.org
wrote:

  I was under the impression that the only viable option for that purpose
 was Virtualbox, but it's license is pretty dubious (GPLv2 + some useful
 parts proprietary). Oracle has a history of bad behaviour with regard to
 licenses, so I would not put all of our eggs in this basket.

 Still, with 3 months time, a student should be able to pull off making it
 as friendly as possible, but it would have to be repeatable, like you say,
 almost automatic.

 It would be even better if it was fully automatic that way we could have
 regular builds.

 Regards,
 Sebastian

 El 20/03/15 a las 08:38, Gonzalo Odiard escibió:

 I didn't have idea that there are so many virtualization options:


 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_platform_virtualization_software

  If we could have a almost automatic way to create a vm,
 and share to users in windows or mac, could solve a lot of problems,
 and help us reach a bigger user base.

  Gonzalo



 On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 10:17 AM, Sebastian Silva 
 sebast...@fuentelibre.org wrote:

  El 20/03/15 a las 06:58, Gonzalo Odiard escibió:

   | A different approach would be to provide a virtual machine _and_
  virtualisation software _and_ all the necessary configuration files so
  that the user is not exposed to the virtualisation.


  Yes. This would be great.

 This would also be a nice GSOC project.




  --
  Gonzalo Odiard

 SugarLabs - Software for children learning



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Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

2015-03-20 Thread Gonzalo Odiard
 My idea at the time was to approach Oracle for corporate sponsorship
 of Virtualbox images, in particular hosting a workflow to automate
 prebuilt images by host language/keyboard, however some community
 members were aghast at the idea.

Is still needed have a vm by host language/keyboard?
Or we can ask to the user using the same code from the Sugar control panel?

Gonzalo



On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 5:18 PM, James Cameron qu...@laptop.org wrote:

 On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 06:26:34PM +0100, Sean DALY wrote:
  My idea at the time was to approach Oracle for corporate sponsorship
  of Virtualbox images, in particular hosting a workflow to automate
  prebuilt images by host language/keyboard, however some community
  members were aghast at the idea.

 Maybe now is a better time.  Maybe those aghast at the idea haven't
 noticed yet.  ;-)

 --
 James Cameron
 http://quozl.linux.org.au/




-- 
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SugarLabs - Software for children learning
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Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

2015-03-20 Thread James Cameron
On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 08:43:52AM -0500, Sebastian Silva wrote:
 Still, with 3 months time, a student should be able to pull off
 making it as friendly as possible, but it would have to be
 repeatable, like you say, almost automatic.

Yes, repeatability would be essential.  That's something I'm not
confident we have with the virtual machines made by Thomas.  Yes,
Thomas is repeatable if we ask him to be, but the idea of
repeatability is that someone can flick a switch and a new image is
automatically built and customised ready for testing.

-- 
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http://quozl.linux.org.au/
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Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

2015-03-20 Thread James Cameron
On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 06:26:34PM +0100, Sean DALY wrote:
 My idea at the time was to approach Oracle for corporate sponsorship
 of Virtualbox images, in particular hosting a workflow to automate
 prebuilt images by host language/keyboard, however some community
 members were aghast at the idea.

Maybe now is a better time.  Maybe those aghast at the idea haven't
noticed yet.  ;-)

-- 
James Cameron
http://quozl.linux.org.au/
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Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

2015-03-20 Thread Sean DALY
We need to do everything possible to reduce Sugar's installation and
unfamiliarity barriers. Not everyone speaks English and can find and
configure the Sugar control panel on their first encounter with Sugar. A
keyboard mismatched with what appears on the screen merely gives the
impression it doesn't work right. VM hosts could have a number of different
keyboards - for example I have a Macbook with French locale Azerty layout
 (flipped numbers row, common accents) and a Dell education netbook with
Belgium locale keyboard. Look at the Firefox Systems  Languages download
matrix (https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/), for a Sugar VM with
bundled installer an interested teacher or journalist would just need to
choose the appropriate download.

I feel the huge sizes of these images would be more of a problem, but not
much we can do there.

Sean


On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 9:35 PM, Gonzalo Odiard godi...@sugarlabs.org
wrote:

  My idea at the time was to approach Oracle for corporate sponsorship
  of Virtualbox images, in particular hosting a workflow to automate
  prebuilt images by host language/keyboard, however some community
  members were aghast at the idea.

 Is still needed have a vm by host language/keyboard?
 Or we can ask to the user using the same code from the Sugar control panel?

 Gonzalo



 On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 5:18 PM, James Cameron qu...@laptop.org wrote:

 On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 06:26:34PM +0100, Sean DALY wrote:
  My idea at the time was to approach Oracle for corporate sponsorship
  of Virtualbox images, in particular hosting a workflow to automate
  prebuilt images by host language/keyboard, however some community
  members were aghast at the idea.

 Maybe now is a better time.  Maybe those aghast at the idea haven't
 noticed yet.  ;-)

 --
 James Cameron
 http://quozl.linux.org.au/




 --
 Gonzalo Odiard

 SugarLabs - Software for children learning

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Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

2015-03-19 Thread Jerry Vonau
Hi Iain:

 On March 19, 2015 at 5:25 PM Iain Brown Douglas
 i...@browndouglas.plus.com wrote:


 Hi James,

 Thank you for taking the time to make a thoughtful contribution.
 Perhaps you will forgive me if I brainstorm this a bit.

 On Fri, 2015-03-20 at 08:48 +1100, James Cameron wrote:
  I've often thought of making such an application, because of the
  difficulties that some people report with downloading files and
  putting them on USB drive.
 
  The problem with an application is one may end up having to explain
  how to download the application; transferring the issue from the
  original problem to an application that was supposed to fix the
  problem.
 
  In the meanwhile, I have been working the overall problem as a
  training and experience issue, and maintaining a structured
  document:
 
      http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Download

 Thanks for that - I believe that systematic approach would be great
 backup for those experiencing difficulties downloading.

 (Using curl is a sound idea from the point of view that one set of
 instructions can cover a host of different OS)
 
  Some further ideas for what your application might do:
 
  1.  the initial download,
 
  2.  resuming an interrupted download,
 
  3.  verification of download using md5sum or other hashes,
 
  4.  media verification, reading back the files or image to check that
  writing was successful and the media still works.
 
 I think I am right that 4 is covered already by livecd-iso-to-disk, so
 (in my model) the user only has to write a bootable CD.


Yes

 If one knew that a SoaS CD would always make a Sugar stick, the
 prospect of selling the CD, (by third parties ?) becomes more doable.


Is there any specific branding that you want to use?
 
  I've no evidence of proportion of people who have problems with
  downloading files and putting them on media; perhaps it is a
  non-problem.
 
  A more correct approach would be to do research and survey of people
  before and after such an application is made available.  A GSoC
  project could be padded out with this research, and easily fill three
  months.
 
  A systems engineering view would change the product so that the files
  don't have to be written to media in any particular way.  That's what
  we did with the original XO laptops, but SoaS bootable images are
  different because of the typical PC firmware being so exacting.
 

 I think this would be achieved if `liveinst` could be persuaded to write
 *only* to an automatically confirmed target USB, with the host hard
 drive locked out during install and during use of the stick, and grub
 instructed to find only the USB SoaS system.


One would not use 'liveinst' to create a bootable live usb device that is
done as you said with livecd-iso-to-disk. Using 'liveinst' installs a
non-live version of what is booted to a disk, this could be a internal
harddisk or a removable usb drive.


 With reasonably priced availability of 8 GB sticks, this would seem a
 preferable option to me.


'liveinst' is a thin wrapper around Fedora's installer anaconda, which can
use use a kickstart file to automate all or part the process. With a bit of
wizardry one could feed the needed info for the target's partitioning into
a kickstart file and use that with liveinst.

Once you have a non-live install on a usb drive you could clone the device,
just don't boot it before you clone it. Think I'd be interested in working
out the details to make this work.

Jerry



 Regards,

 Iain
  On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 03:54:02PM +, Iain Brown Douglas wrote:
   On Thu, 2015-03-19 at 12:12 -0300, Gonzalo Odiard wrote:
Hi Iain!
GSoC project are for 3 months of work for a university student.
Do you think that script imply that amount of work?
   No :)
What should be the use case? Auto duplicate SoaS?
Reagrds,
   
   The use case is in the field of Auto duplicate SoaS, yes.
  
   SoaS Loader [2] is horribly clunky, *but* it is a way to get the
   instructions where they are accessible.
  
   Perhaps I should instead ask here whether anyone would work with me
   on
   SoaS Loader to make such a script.
  
   Iain
  
Gonzalo
   
On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 11:38 AM, Iain Brown Douglas
i...@browndouglas.plus.com wrote:
            Hi All,
            
            I wonder if anyone would think it appropriate (or
            inappropriate) to add this idea to Google Summer of Code
   [1]?
            
            To write a script for use with Sugar on a Stick, which
   would
            probe the capacity of an
            inserted USB stick,and deliver the livecd-iso-to-disk
   command
            on
            confirmation by the user. The command would suit the
            aspirations of SoaS Loader [2].
            
            Regards,
            
            Iain
            
            [1] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Summer_of_Code/2015
            [2] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/SoaS_Loader
            
            

Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

2015-03-19 Thread Iain Brown Douglas
Hi Jerry,

On Thu, 2015-03-19 at 18:02 -0500, Jerry Vonau wrote:
 Hi Iain:
 
  On March 19, 2015 at 5:25 PM Iain Brown Douglas
  i...@browndouglas.plus.com wrote:
 
 
  Hi James,
 
  Thank you for taking the time to make a thoughtful contribution.
  Perhaps you will forgive me if I brainstorm this a bit.
 
  On Fri, 2015-03-20 at 08:48 +1100, James Cameron wrote:
   I've often thought of making such an application, because of the
   difficulties that some people report with downloading files and
   putting them on USB drive.
  
   The problem with an application is one may end up having to explain
   how to download the application; transferring the issue from the
   original problem to an application that was supposed to fix the
   problem.
  
   In the meanwhile, I have been working the overall problem as a
   training and experience issue, and maintaining a structured
   document:
  
   http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Download
 
  Thanks for that - I believe that systematic approach would be great
  backup for those experiencing difficulties downloading.
 
  (Using curl is a sound idea from the point of view that one set of
  instructions can cover a host of different OS)
  
   Some further ideas for what your application might do:
  
   1.  the initial download,
  
   2.  resuming an interrupted download,
  
   3.  verification of download using md5sum or other hashes,
  
   4.  media verification, reading back the files or image to check that
   writing was successful and the media still works.
  
  I think I am right that 4 is covered already by livecd-iso-to-disk, so
  (in my model) the user only has to write a bootable CD.
 
 
 Yes
 
  If one knew that a SoaS CD would always make a Sugar stick, the
  prospect of selling the CD, (by third parties ?) becomes more doable.
 
 
 Is there any specific branding that you want to use?

No, I have no angle at all on that. I found the CD/DVD available online
for $8. I only make the point that $8 is a sound investment for anyone
alarmed at a download, if they know it will self convert to a USB
version.
  
   I've no evidence of proportion of people who have problems with
   downloading files and putting them on media; perhaps it is a
   non-problem.
  
   A more correct approach would be to do research and survey of people
   before and after such an application is made available.  A GSoC
   project could be padded out with this research, and easily fill three
   months.
  
   A systems engineering view would change the product so that the files
   don't have to be written to media in any particular way.  That's what
   we did with the original XO laptops, but SoaS bootable images are
   different because of the typical PC firmware being so exacting.
  
 
  I think this would be achieved if `liveinst` could be persuaded to write
  *only* to an automatically confirmed target USB, with the host hard
  drive locked out during install and during use of the stick, and grub
  instructed to find only the USB SoaS system.
 
 
 One would not use 'liveinst' to create a bootable live usb device that is
 done as you said with livecd-iso-to-disk. Using 'liveinst' installs a
 non-live version of what is booted to a disk, this could be a internal
 harddisk or a removable usb drive.
 
 
  With reasonably priced availability of 8 GB sticks, this would seem a
  preferable option to me.
 
 
 'liveinst' is a thin wrapper around Fedora's installer anaconda, which can
 use use a kickstart file to automate all or part the process. With a bit of
 wizardry one could feed the needed info for the target's partitioning into
 a kickstart file and use that with liveinst.
 
 Once you have a non-live install on a usb drive you could clone the device,
 just don't boot it before you clone it. Think I'd be interested in working
 out the details to make this work.

That would be magic!

Iain
 
 Jerry
 
 
 
  Regards,
 
  Iain
   On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 03:54:02PM +, Iain Brown Douglas wrote:
On Thu, 2015-03-19 at 12:12 -0300, Gonzalo Odiard wrote:
 Hi Iain!
 GSoC project are for 3 months of work for a university student.
 Do you think that script imply that amount of work?
No :)
 What should be the use case? Auto duplicate SoaS?
 Reagrds,

The use case is in the field of Auto duplicate SoaS, yes.
   
SoaS Loader [2] is horribly clunky, *but* it is a way to get the
instructions where they are accessible.
   
Perhaps I should instead ask here whether anyone would work with me
on
SoaS Loader to make such a script.
   
Iain
   
 Gonzalo

 On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 11:38 AM, Iain Brown Douglas
 i...@browndouglas.plus.com wrote:
 Hi All,
 
 I wonder if anyone would think it appropriate (or
 inappropriate) to add this idea to Google Summer of Code
[1]?
 
 To write a script for use with Sugar on a Stick, which
would
 probe the capacity 

Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

2015-03-19 Thread Iain Brown Douglas
On Thu, 2015-03-19 at 18:44 -0500, Jerry Vonau wrote:
 
  On March 19, 2015 at 6:30 PM Iain Brown Douglas
  i...@browndouglas.plus.com wrote:
 
 
  Hi Jerry,
 
 
If one knew that a SoaS CD would always make a Sugar stick, the
prospect of selling the CD, (by third parties ?) becomes more doable.
   
  
   Is there any specific branding that you want to use?
 
  No, I have no angle at all on that. I found the CD/DVD available online
  for $8. I only make the point that $8 is a sound investment for anyone
  alarmed at a download, if they know it will self convert to a USB
  version.
 
 Think what you're after is sugar on a non-live usbkey, so one would not
 have to go through the hoops of running 'liveinst' to create this usbkey.
 Kind of like the way the ARM SoaS images are built. Just boot the key and
 this is your desktop sort of thing?

I had not thought of that being an option.

I have found a made by liveinst usbkey, to be superior to compressed.
I can transfer files on and off it easily, and can very easily see, or
fix it, if overfull.

Another benefit is the possibility of a combined Sugar + Mate on a stick
which is attractive. (I have one.)

Also with Sugar a possibility on Raspberry Pi 2, and Allwinner tablets,
if there is a similarity of work-flow I see that as attractive from POV
documentation.

Iain
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Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

2015-03-19 Thread Iain Brown Douglas
Hi James,

Thank you for taking the time to make a thoughtful contribution.
Perhaps you will forgive me if I brainstorm this a bit.

On Fri, 2015-03-20 at 08:48 +1100, James Cameron wrote:
 I've often thought of making such an application, because of the
 difficulties that some people report with downloading files and
 putting them on USB drive.
 
 The problem with an application is one may end up having to explain
 how to download the application; transferring the issue from the
 original problem to an application that was supposed to fix the
 problem.
 
 In the meanwhile, I have been working the overall problem as a
 training and experience issue, and maintaining a structured
 document:
 
   http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Download

Thanks for that - I believe that systematic approach would be great
backup for those experiencing difficulties downloading.

(Using curl is a sound idea from the point of view that one set of
instructions can cover a host of different OS)
 
 Some further ideas for what your application might do:
 
 1.  the initial download,
 
 2.  resuming an interrupted download,
 
 3.  verification of download using md5sum or other hashes,
 
 4.  media verification, reading back the files or image to check that
 writing was successful and the media still works.
 
I think I am right that 4 is covered already by livecd-iso-to-disk, so
(in my model) the user only has to write a bootable CD.

If one knew that a SoaS CD would always make a Sugar stick, the
prospect of selling the CD, (by third parties ?) becomes more doable.

 I've no evidence of proportion of people who have problems with
 downloading files and putting them on media; perhaps it is a
 non-problem.
 
 A more correct approach would be to do research and survey of people
 before and after such an application is made available.  A GSoC
 project could be padded out with this research, and easily fill three
 months.
 
 A systems engineering view would change the product so that the files
 don't have to be written to media in any particular way.  That's what
 we did with the original XO laptops, but SoaS bootable images are
 different because of the typical PC firmware being so exacting.
 

I think this would be achieved if `liveinst` could be persuaded to write
*only* to an automatically confirmed target USB, with the host hard
drive locked out during install and during use of the stick, and grub
instructed to find only the USB SoaS system.


With reasonably priced availability of 8 GB sticks, this would seem a
preferable option to me.

Regards,

Iain
 On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 03:54:02PM +, Iain Brown Douglas wrote:
  On Thu, 2015-03-19 at 12:12 -0300, Gonzalo Odiard wrote:
   Hi Iain!
   GSoC project are for 3 months of work for a university student.
   Do you think that script imply that amount of work? 
  No :)
   What should be the use case? Auto duplicate SoaS?
   Reagrds,
   
  The use case is in the field of Auto duplicate SoaS, yes.
  
  SoaS Loader [2] is horribly clunky, *but* it is a way to get the
  instructions where they are accessible.
  
  Perhaps I should instead ask here whether anyone would work with me on
  SoaS Loader to make such a script.
  
  Iain
  
   Gonzalo
   
   On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 11:38 AM, Iain Brown Douglas
   i...@browndouglas.plus.com wrote:
   Hi All,
   
   I wonder if anyone would think it appropriate (or
   inappropriate) to add this idea to Google Summer of Code [1]?
   
   To write a script for use with Sugar on a Stick, which would
   probe the capacity of an
   inserted USB stick,and deliver the livecd-iso-to-disk command
   on
   confirmation by the user. The command would suit the
   aspirations of SoaS Loader [2].
   
   Regards,
   
   Iain
   
   [1] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Summer_of_Code/2015
   [2] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/SoaS_Loader
   
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   -- 
   Gonzalo Odiard
   
   SugarLabs - Software for children learning 
   
  
  
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Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

2015-03-19 Thread Jerry Vonau


 On March 19, 2015 at 6:30 PM Iain Brown Douglas
 i...@browndouglas.plus.com wrote:


 Hi Jerry,


   If one knew that a SoaS CD would always make a Sugar stick, the
   prospect of selling the CD, (by third parties ?) becomes more doable.
  
 
  Is there any specific branding that you want to use?

 No, I have no angle at all on that. I found the CD/DVD available online
 for $8. I only make the point that $8 is a sound investment for anyone
 alarmed at a download, if they know it will self convert to a USB
 version.

Think what you're after is sugar on a non-live usbkey, so one would not
have to go through the hoops of running 'liveinst' to create this usbkey.
Kind of like the way the ARM SoaS images are built. Just boot the key and
this is your desktop sort of thing?
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Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

2015-03-19 Thread James Cameron
On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 10:25:55PM +, Iain Brown Douglas wrote:
 Thank you for taking the time to make a thoughtful contribution.
 Perhaps you will forgive me if I brainstorm this a bit.

Yep, no worries.  Interesting, but you went off into areas I didn't
have any comment on.

I do have a comment on the accessibility of Sugar for new users ..

Because of this complexity you are trying to solve, bootable USB
drives are more trouble than they are worth.  Bootable media is more
of a purists approach for reasons of Sugar performance, and ease of
production by developers.

A different approach would be to provide a virtual machine _and_
virtualisation software _and_ all the necessary configuration files so
that the user is not exposed to the virtualisation.

Then it would be one big download in .exe format for Windows, and .dmg
format for Mac OS X.  The user would click on it and it would show
them Sugar after a short delay.

I know Thomas Gilliard has worked on some of the components of this,
in particular manually prepared virtual machine images, but it would
need to be a complete packaged solution, not a series of complex
fragments as it is now.

-- 
James Cameron
http://quozl.linux.org.au/
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Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects - SOAS

2015-03-19 Thread Tony Anderson

Hi,

Is this proposal to make SOAS a live stick capable of installing Sugar 
on conventional systems (Trisquel, ...)?


We have a live version of this problem on the server side.

Jerry Vonau wrote a script mkusbinstall based on live-cd. OLE Nepal 
switched to unetbootin for NEXS 6_31 (OS-7 on CentOS 6.4).

I have been trying to make this work cleanly with BERNIE - to no avail.

One problem is that the user needs to be root. This is not possible for 
a script unless it is launched by a live user. Unetbootin is

a gui implementation.

What I am looking for is a way to make a bootable usb stick that is 
ready to install XS without user having to supply any configuration
information (like path names to image or /dev for usb stick) - sort of 
an all-in-one unetbootin.


The steps require formatting the usb device (as would be true for SOAS), 
copying the image to the disk,  and running live_cd to create the 
environment on the

usb stick.

In the SOAS case, the usb stick presumably runs live and has the option 
to install for some target platforms.


Tony

On 03/20/2015 06:26 AM, sugar-devel-requ...@lists.sugarlabs.org wrote:

Message: 6
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2015 22:25:55 +
From: Iain Brown Douglasi...@browndouglas.plus.com
To: James Cameronqu...@laptop.org
Cc:sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org
Subject: Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects
Message-ID: 1426803955.2592.56.camel@vey-waldorf
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

Hi James,

Thank you for taking the time to make a thoughtful contribution.
Perhaps you will forgive me if I brainstorm this a bit.

On Fri, 2015-03-20 at 08:48 +1100, James Cameron wrote:

I've often thought of making such an application, because of the
difficulties that some people report with downloading files and
putting them on USB drive.

The problem with an application is one may end up having to explain
how to download the application; transferring the issue from the
original problem to an application that was supposed to fix the
problem.

In the meanwhile, I have been working the overall problem as a
training and experience issue, and maintaining a structured
document:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Download

Thanks for that - I believe that systematic approach would be great
backup for those experiencing difficulties downloading.

(Using curl is a sound idea from the point of view that one set of
instructions can cover a host of different OS)


Some further ideas for what your application might do:

1.  the initial download,

2.  resuming an interrupted download,

3.  verification of download using md5sum or other hashes,

4.  media verification, reading back the files or image to check that
writing was successful and the media still works.


I think I am right that 4 is covered already by livecd-iso-to-disk, so
(in my model) the user only has to write a bootable CD.

If one knew that a SoaS CD would always make a Sugar stick, the
prospect of selling the CD, (by third parties ?) becomes more doable.


I've no evidence of proportion of people who have problems with
downloading files and putting them on media; perhaps it is a
non-problem.

A more correct approach would be to do research and survey of people
before and after such an application is made available.  A GSoC
project could be padded out with this research, and easily fill three
months.

A systems engineering view would change the product so that the files
don't have to be written to media in any particular way.  That's what
we did with the original XO laptops, but SoaS bootable images are
different because of the typical PC firmware being so exacting.


I think this would be achieved if `liveinst` could be persuaded to write
*only*  to an automatically confirmed target USB, with the host hard
drive locked out during install and during use of the stick, and grub
instructed to find only the USB SoaS system.


With reasonably priced availability of 8 GB sticks, this would seem a
preferable option to me.

Regards,

Iain


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Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

2015-03-19 Thread Gonzalo Odiard
Hi Iain!
GSoC project are for 3 months of work for a university student.
Do you think that script imply that amount of work?
What should be the use case? Auto duplicate SoaS?
Reagrds,

Gonzalo

On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 11:38 AM, Iain Brown Douglas 
i...@browndouglas.plus.com wrote:

 Hi All,

 I wonder if anyone would think it appropriate (or inappropriate) to add
 this idea to Google Summer of Code [1]?

 To write a script for use with Sugar on a Stick, which would probe the
 capacity of an
 inserted USB stick,and deliver the livecd-iso-to-disk command on
 confirmation by the user. The command would suit the aspirations of SoaS
 Loader [2].

 Regards,

 Iain

 [1] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Summer_of_Code/2015
 [2] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/SoaS_Loader

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-- 
Gonzalo Odiard

SugarLabs - Software for children learning
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Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

2015-03-19 Thread James Cameron
I've often thought of making such an application, because of the
difficulties that some people report with downloading files and
putting them on USB drive.

The problem with an application is one may end up having to explain
how to download the application; transferring the issue from the
original problem to an application that was supposed to fix the
problem.

In the meanwhile, I have been working the overall problem as a
training and experience issue, and maintaining a structured
document:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Download

Some further ideas for what your application might do:

1.  the initial download,

2.  resuming an interrupted download,

3.  verification of download using md5sum or other hashes,

4.  media verification, reading back the files or image to check that
writing was successful and the media still works.

I've no evidence of proportion of people who have problems with
downloading files and putting them on media; perhaps it is a
non-problem.

A more correct approach would be to do research and survey of people
before and after such an application is made available.  A GSoC
project could be padded out with this research, and easily fill three
months.

A systems engineering view would change the product so that the files
don't have to be written to media in any particular way.  That's what
we did with the original XO laptops, but SoaS bootable images are
different because of the typical PC firmware being so exacting.

On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 03:54:02PM +, Iain Brown Douglas wrote:
 On Thu, 2015-03-19 at 12:12 -0300, Gonzalo Odiard wrote:
  Hi Iain!
  GSoC project are for 3 months of work for a university student.
  Do you think that script imply that amount of work? 
 No :)
  What should be the use case? Auto duplicate SoaS?
  Reagrds,
  
 The use case is in the field of Auto duplicate SoaS, yes.
 
 SoaS Loader [2] is horribly clunky, *but* it is a way to get the
 instructions where they are accessible.
 
 Perhaps I should instead ask here whether anyone would work with me on
 SoaS Loader to make such a script.
 
 Iain
 
  Gonzalo
  
  On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 11:38 AM, Iain Brown Douglas
  i...@browndouglas.plus.com wrote:
  Hi All,
  
  I wonder if anyone would think it appropriate (or
  inappropriate) to add this idea to Google Summer of Code [1]?
  
  To write a script for use with Sugar on a Stick, which would
  probe the capacity of an
  inserted USB stick,and deliver the livecd-iso-to-disk command
  on
  confirmation by the user. The command would suit the
  aspirations of SoaS Loader [2].
  
  Regards,
  
  Iain
  
  [1] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Summer_of_Code/2015
  [2] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/SoaS_Loader
  
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Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

2015-03-19 Thread Iain Brown Douglas
On Thu, 2015-03-19 at 11:11 -0500, Sebastian Silva wrote:
 By no means!
 
 It actually is a great idea.
 
 Since you had the idea (or the itch) to fix this, I would ask that
 you, please, see it thru to completion. ;-)
 Take 10 minutes to list all the ways trying Sugar could be improved,
 or, where not improved, at least better documented.
 
 There. Now you will have a meaningful GSoC Project: 
 'Improve Sugar's first impression User Experience: Sugar on a
 Stick / Trisquel on a Toast '
 This is an interesting project because it is _not only_ coding but
 heavily, design and some marketing.
 
 In my mind it would be to:
   * Make a custom lili / unetbootin / etc installer capable of
 presenting simple wizard like creation tool.
   * Put some useful information in Soas / Toast.
   * Maybe solve the installer chicken-egg problem (can't trust a
 kid with a partitioning installer).
   * Document all of this
   * Make it so that the solution is flexible for the future
   * Make a website that offers the friendliest solution based on
 platform, and turns to Sugarizer as worst-case
 Register for being a mentor at google melange. Then you have to add a
 connection to Sugar Labs as a mentor. 
 Don't ask me, the UI is horrible. They get themselves help in this
 regard.
 
 Please do this. It will amplify Sugar Lab's usefulness for sure.
 
 Regards,
 Sebastian
 
This is an excellent proposal, Sebastian, but well beyond me!

Please do carry this idea forward - my idea (or the itch) was never as
big as this! I will give you all the support I can.

Meanwhile I shall plug away at getting SoaS Loader to work properly. Any
offers of help welcome.

Regards,

Iain

 El 19/03/15 a las 10:51, Iain Brown Douglas escibió:
 
  I take that as an `inappropriate`, then :)
 
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Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

2015-03-19 Thread Iain Brown Douglas
On Thu, 2015-03-19 at 10:11 -0500, Sebastian Silva wrote:
 But perhaps you could envision a more complete solution
 related to Sugar on a Stick's need (Fedora / Trisquel / future variants).
 
This is an important part of your reply. My envisioning does not go that
far, :(

Regards,

Iain


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Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

2015-03-19 Thread Sebastian Silva
By no means!

It actually is a great idea.

Since you had the idea (or the itch) to fix this, I would ask that you,
please, see it thru to completion. ;-)
Take 10 minutes to list all the ways trying Sugar could be improved, or,
where not improved, at least better documented.

There. Now you will have a meaningful GSoC Project:*
'Improve Sugar's first impression User Experience: Sugar on a
Stick / Trisquel on a Toast '*
This is an interesting project because it is _not only_ coding but
heavily, design and some marketing.

In my mind it would be to:

  * Make a custom lili / unetbootin / etc installer capable of
presenting simple wizard like creation tool.
  * Put some useful information in Soas / Toast.
  * Maybe solve the installer chicken-egg problem (can't trust a kid
with a partitioning installer).
  * Document all of this
  * Make it so that the solution is flexible for the future
  * Make a website that offers the friendliest solution based on
platform, and turns to Sugarizer as worst-case

Register for being a mentor
http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/connection/pick/google/gsoc2015 at
google melange. Then you have to add a connection to Sugar Labs as a
mentor.
Don't ask me, the UI is horrible. They get themselves help in this regard.

Please do this. It will amplify Sugar Lab's usefulness for sure.

Regards,
Sebastian

El 19/03/15 a las 10:51, Iain Brown Douglas escibió:
 I take that as an `inappropriate`, then :)

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Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

2015-03-19 Thread Sebastian Silva
Hi Iain.

IMHO you'd need to flesh it out some more, the simple conditional you
spec'd out should take an afternoon to code. You need to think of
something that will fit a 5000 US$ developing stipend and/or if you
prefer, a summer's work.

By the way, I am under the impression this is a problem with some GSOC
ideas.

Not saying we should expect major move forward in Sugar from a 3 months
internship. But perhaps you could envision a more complete solution
related to Sugar on a Stick's need (Fedora / Trisquel / future variants).

I find that many people find it hard to burn a USB stick or CD, download
the correct image (heck I don't know where to look). Perhaps a simple
multiplatform disk burner based on unetbootin or suse's imagewriter, or
written from scratch would be really cool, something that will look up
and present the options in SOAS, etc.

This sounds to me like a more complete project but perhaps I'm too
ambitious.

Regards,
Sebastian


El 19/03/15 a las 09:38, Iain Brown Douglas escibió:
 Hi All,

 I wonder if anyone would think it appropriate (or inappropriate) to add this 
 idea to Google Summer of Code [1]?

 To write a script for use with Sugar on a Stick, which would probe the 
 capacity of an
 inserted USB stick,and deliver the livecd-iso-to-disk command on
 confirmation by the user. The command would suit the aspirations of SoaS 
 Loader [2].

 Regards,

 Iain

 [1] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Summer_of_Code/2015
 [2] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/SoaS_Loader

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Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

2015-03-19 Thread Iain Brown Douglas
On Thu, 2015-03-19 at 10:11 -0500, Sebastian Silva wrote:
 Hi Iain.
 
 IMHO you'd need to flesh it out some more, the simple conditional you
 spec'd out should take an afternoon to code. You need to think of
 something that will fit a 5000 US$ developing stipend and/or if you
 prefer, a summer's work.
 
 By the way, I am under the impression this is a problem with some GSOC
 ideas.
 
 Not saying we should expect major move forward in Sugar from a 3 months
 internship. But perhaps you could envision a more complete solution
 related to Sugar on a Stick's need (Fedora / Trisquel / future variants).
 
 I find that many people find it hard to burn a USB stick or CD, download
 the correct image (heck I don't know where to look).

Agreed - the point has been made before, but the download button on the
wiki does not point to a download!

 Perhaps a simple
 multiplatform disk burner based on unetbootin or suse's imagewriter, or
 written from scratch would be really cool, something that will look up
 and present the options in SOAS, etc.
 
There is LiLi [3]
 This sounds to me like a more complete project but perhaps I'm too
 ambitious.
 
That sounds really cool, I should like to see that.


 Regards,
 Sebastian
 
 
 El 19/03/15 a las 09:38, Iain Brown Douglas escibió:
  Hi All,
 
  I wonder if anyone would think it appropriate (or inappropriate) to add 
  this idea to Google Summer of Code [1]?
 

I take that as an `inappropriate`, then :)

Iain

[3] http://www.linuxliveusb.com/

  To write a script for use with Sugar on a Stick, which would probe the 
  capacity of an
  inserted USB stick,and deliver the livecd-iso-to-disk command on
  confirmation by the user. The command would suit the aspirations of SoaS 
  Loader [2].
 
  Regards,
 
  Iain
 
  [1] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Summer_of_Code/2015
  [2] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/SoaS_Loader
 
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Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

2015-03-19 Thread Iain Brown Douglas
On Thu, 2015-03-19 at 12:12 -0300, Gonzalo Odiard wrote:
 Hi Iain!
 GSoC project are for 3 months of work for a university student.
 Do you think that script imply that amount of work? 
No :)
 What should be the use case? Auto duplicate SoaS?
 Reagrds,
 
The use case is in the field of Auto duplicate SoaS, yes.

SoaS Loader [2] is horribly clunky, *but* it is a way to get the
instructions where they are accessible.

Perhaps I should instead ask here whether anyone would work with me on
SoaS Loader to make such a script.

Iain

 Gonzalo
 
 On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 11:38 AM, Iain Brown Douglas
 i...@browndouglas.plus.com wrote:
 Hi All,
 
 I wonder if anyone would think it appropriate (or
 inappropriate) to add this idea to Google Summer of Code [1]?
 
 To write a script for use with Sugar on a Stick, which would
 probe the capacity of an
 inserted USB stick,and deliver the livecd-iso-to-disk command
 on
 confirmation by the user. The command would suit the
 aspirations of SoaS Loader [2].
 
 Regards,
 
 Iain
 
 [1] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Summer_of_Code/2015
 [2] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/SoaS_Loader
 
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 SugarLabs - Software for children learning 
 


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Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

2015-03-18 Thread Peter Robinson
I've added a few ideas that would be very useful for SoaS (and in
general I believe), I hope it's not too late, feel free to
update/edit/change/query.

Peter

On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 5:58 PM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.com wrote:
 Sure. Please add them

 Measure to GST 1.0 would be good as well.

 On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 12:55 PM, Peter Robinson pbrobin...@gmail.com wrote:
 Hi All,

 Looking at the GSoC 2015 idea page [1] I'm wondering if it's possible
 to get some other core items added as part of the sugar core projects?

 Like:
 * Covert Record to gtk3 / gstreamer 1
 * Covert TamTam/Speak etc to CSound 6

 Peter

 [1] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Summer_of_Code/2015
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Re: [Sugar-devel] GSoC projects

2015-03-04 Thread Walter Bender
Sure. Please add them

Measure to GST 1.0 would be good as well.

On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 12:55 PM, Peter Robinson pbrobin...@gmail.com wrote:
 Hi All,

 Looking at the GSoC 2015 idea page [1] I'm wondering if it's possible
 to get some other core items added as part of the sugar core projects?

 Like:
 * Covert Record to gtk3 / gstreamer 1
 * Covert TamTam/Speak etc to CSound 6

 Peter

 [1] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Summer_of_Code/2015
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